doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Unnamed Workmen

Gasgunner,

There's a contact number for a guy named Ed, so you might call him and ask, but I doubt it was one of Engilbert's guns 'cause looks to be too recent. I believe that Engilbert died about 1980.

Bob

Unfortunately I can’t go back and ask these men, but Weatherby’s shop must have had some sort of apprentice program, or at least tutoring for craftsmen, in order to teach them gunsmithing and stockmaking in the Weatherby fashion, all of these men bore the mark of Weatherby in one form or another. Whenever I had them do any work for me, I always reminded them that I didn’t want it to look like a Weatherby, but sometimes it did anyway. Engilbert was very proficient at inlaying the typical elongated Weatherby diamonds into the sides of bolt action sporters and although I’ve always thought that these things were rather bizarre looking, some men like them and several times while I was in Ole’s shop I saw him inlaying diamonds into both new as well as older rifle stocks. Ole always kept a supply of exotic woods on hand for diamond inlays, grip caps and nose caps. Mike Chang also favored the Weatherby design, one time I brought him a highwall Winchester as well as detailed drawings of my desired checkering pattern and a picture of a Stevens Schuetzen with a similar pattern. Although he followed my instructions and the finished stock looked wonderful, he hated it and thought it looked awful because it didn’t look like a Weatherby.

Roy wanted folks to recognize them across the room, still can.

Another Weatherby trait that Engilbert retained in all of his work was his use of polyurethane finish, I never saw Ole use any other type of finish, but he could make polyurethane mimic just about any finish you wanted. He could create a Weatherby like high gloss finish, or a dull finish that looked like a hand rubbed varnish, or anything in between, but it was all polyurethane, and to his credit I never saw any of his finishes separate or chip.

Roy Weatherby was a good businessman and his business practices were many years ahead of their time. At first Weatherby set up his shop in South Gate to produce the custom rifles that he had envisioned, and to develop the Weatherby brand name for high quality deluxe sporting rifles in special Weatherby calibers, however, as costs became prohibitive, he closed down his manufacturing facilities here in America and had the rifles produced in Germany and then later Japan. What Weatherby was doing is now popularly known as �branding,� which has unfortunately become the accepted method of manufacturing here in America. Companies develop a brand name, have their products manufactured over seas and spend their time promoting and advertising their particular brand.